


Abortion

by angel1876



Series: Cathartic [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Neglect, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 09:04:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6232636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel1876/pseuds/angel1876
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abortion: The deliberate act of terminating a human pregnancy, typically performed within twenty eight weeks of conception.</p>
<p>This is not a story about Abortion. </p>
<p>((Trigger warning for suicidal thoughts and attempt. ))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abortion

It was just another stupid, meaningless argument in a long list of stupid, meaningless arguments. You'd almost gotten used to them by that point, though they hurt none the less. Frustration was a familiar shadow brushing along your back, though you weren't allowed to show it. As angry as your mother got, as much as she yelled and ranted and threw temper tantrums like she herself was a child, you weren't supposed to talk back. You weren't supposed to raise your voice, or swear, or argue. What you were supposed to do was sit there and take it, then wait for her to calm down.

The process had been the same for most of your life. She had her moods. She blew up at people. It was what she did, what she'd always done, and typically there was nothing you could do about it but let her be. Once she let her anger out, things went back to normal, and you could go on with your life.

Right up until your teen years, that was the way things were. Then the family income went south. There were food stamps, neither of you were going to starve, but there was no affording anything else. The stress built every month that went by and the rent only just barely got paid, and you could understand that. At least, you tried. And you tried so hard to be supportive. You let her be when she was angry, and you stood by her side when she was scared or needed to vent. You couldn't do much financially, given your own lack of a job. You even sold your belongings to keep her in cigarettes, which helped. At least, because of you, she didn't have to suffer through withdrawal.

You steeled yourself. You were patient, and you waited for the storm to pass.

But it didn't. Weeks turned into months. Every day that came brought with it a new fight. Mostly, she just picked random house hold chores to focus on. She never asked you to do anything, she waited until something needed to be done, then she'd scream at you for not doing it. Of course, pointing out that you weren't a mind reader, that you would have done these things if asked, got you nowhere. She made it quite clear she shouldn't have to tell you to do these things, you should just do them.

So you just did them. You kept the place clean for her in the hopes that everything would be fine. But it didn't stop. She still did it, picked out the tiniest things you'd overlooked. A plate in the sink would set her off, and any attempt to draw her attention to what you'd done for her were met with "That doesn't matter, I didn't ask you to do that."

Even when you managed to get everything done perfectly, she'd find something to complain about. You looked at her wrong, you didn't greet her when she walked through the door, she didn't like the tone of your voice when you made some benign comment an hour before. It didn't even have to be you. Someone else could piss her off, and she'd spend the next hour yelling at you.

You were patient, but you weren't a saint. You understood that she was stressed, but you were stressed, too.

Somewhere along the line, you stopped worrying about keeping everything clean. What was the point? She was just going to tell you how horrible you were anyway. As the days dragged on, you withdrew more and more into yourself. Kept to your room, didn't even feel like getting out of bed unless you had to. There was nothing you could do to help, she'd made that abundantly clear, and you were so sick of being yelled at for stepping foot into her presence you didn't feel like it was worth it anymore.

But she was still your mother. And when she came to you complaining that she never got to see you anymore, and if you could just come out and spend some time with her, you agreed. So you played one of her favorite games with her...and that was when she decided you were playing wrong. She screamed at you over a simple game, and something in you snapped.

"If I'm pissing you off just by being here maybe you'd be better off without me."

You said it, finally lashing out yourself, and a part of you just hoped that would get through to her. That she'd realize what she was making you feel, that her constant put downs and constant lectures on how you just aren't enough were getting to you.

She replied with, "You know what? You're right. I should have had an abortion."

Then she left. She turned your back on you, and left you in that empty house, slamming the door to her room behind her.

You didn't have anyone. You only had her. She was your mother, and she was everything to you, and she just confirmed what was becoming your greatest fear right to your face. You'd done everything in your power that you could for her, and in the end, you were just a burden. A regret.

A parasite. You shouldn't even have been born. There was no point to all of this, and there was no point to you.

Suicidal thoughts were nothing new. They were ultimately harmless, so you decided, since you'd never really considered it as an option before. Because of this, though, you knew of several things just laying around the house that you could use to end your life.

Poisoning, for example. There were enough cleaning products and medications around. You'd heard that poisoning, however, was a very painful way to die, and moreover, there was a chance you'd simply vomit everything back up and be sick for a few days instead of actually passing. It wasn't an option.

Neither was any form of strangulation, because not being able to breathe is terrifying.

You settled on a blade, then. You picked up one of the kitchen knives and locked yourself up in the bathroom, and the thought kept repeating in your mind. If she wanted an abortion so bad, then she could have one.

Sitting alone in the tiny room, you played around with the idea, knife at your wrist. Digging the blade in, though the dull edge only went so far into your flesh before the pain stilled your hand. It hurt too much to do any real damage, the cut no deeper than what a piece of paper could make. You were hardly even bleeding. You tried to push it in past the skin line and into the vein, but you couldn't. Even as you focused on the image of what she might do when she came and found your body, possibly with the words 'you got what you asked for' painted on the mirror, you couldn't bring yourself to get any deeper.

And you cried. You sobbed until all your anger and all of your hate leaked out of your eyes, and you were left numb and tired and curled up on the toilet seat with the knife clutched to your chest. Over and over you ran the scenario through your head until you could almost picture it as if it were a memory and not just a sad child's fantasy.

Your mother would be hurt if she found you dead in the bathroom. That knowledge in of itself meant that, on some level, there was a part of you that knew she still cared. That she loved you. That she didn't mean what she said. As much as she claimed that you were useless and spoiled and stupid, she did still love you. And, perhaps, that was why everything hurt so much. If she simply hated you, then you could just shrug her off. You could handle her hatred. You could stop yourself from caring if she hated you.

But she didn't. She loved you.

And despite everything, you loved her. You cared what she thought. You wanted her acceptance.

Someone who treats someone else like this doesn't love them, you'd tell yourself. But someone who goes out of their way to keep another fed and housed surely can't hate them. And maybe she was right. Maybe you were stupid, ungrateful, maybe you were just a spoiled selfish brat that should think themself lucky to even have a home at all. It wasn't like you were worth anything. You didn't have a job, you brought nothing of value into the home.

She really was better off without you. But she loved you, and that should be enough.

She was just stressed. And to ask her not to use you to vent that stress, that was selfishness on your part.

You deserved to be yelled at anyway.

But you didn't. She was the one who started it. You were just trying to spend time with her, the two of you were having fun until she ruined it.

Why? Why did it have to be that way? You used to be happy. The two of you used to be so close, always there for the other, and now you weren't.

But in the end, what got to you more than anything else wasn't the argument. It wasn't the anger and it wasn't your own self pity and self blame. It wasn't even the fact that this was the first time you'd honestly considered suicide as an option to get away from that place. It was the fact that you were in that bathroom for three hours.

Three hours. More than enough time to carry the act out if you had the willpower.

And she hadn't come out of her room. She'd let you sit there for three hours, and she had no idea, never even came to check on you. If you'd actually managed to slit your wrists, you'd be dead. How long before she actually thought to come see you? Would your body even still have warmth in it?

It wasn't that she didn't care. She loved you. And that part of yourself that kept telling you this assured you that if she found you dead she'd be upset. She wouldn't be able to handle your death. Not after the death of your father years before. She cared.

It was the fact that she had no idea the impact of her own words. She was focused only on herself, on how she felt, she didn't take your thoughts into consideration at all. She might care about you, but she spared no thought to what she made you feel. She had no idea that her yelling had gotten to you to the point you would make an attempt on your own life.

Telling her...wasn't an option. You'd told her negative things before. All it would do would give her more ammunition in her rants. She'd accuse you of wanting attention. She'd start using the possibility of therapy as threat again.

The only way to get through to her was to actually go through with killing yourself...and obviously, you hadn't the strength for that.

Finally, you came out of the bathroom and into the quiet, motionless house. You put the knife away and went to her room.

And once you were calm, once you were ready to face her, you crawled into her bed and curled up next to her. And of course, the very first words out of her mouth were "Are you still mad at me?"

As if you were the one causing the problems.

And maybe you were.

"No," you said. "I was never mad."

You were just tired.


End file.
